diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index d3c4f66c..c3c3b1b0 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Description: Pipeline tools coordinate the pieces of computationally
   The methodology in this package
   borrows from GNU 'Make' (2015, ISBN:978-9881443519)
   and 'drake' (2018, <doi:10.21105/joss.00550>).
-Version: 1.9.1.9007
+Version: 1.9.1.9008
 License: MIT + file LICENSE
 URL: https://docs.ropensci.org/targets/, https://github.com/ropensci/targets
 BugReports: https://github.com/ropensci/targets/issues
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index f39ea20c..5ec63ae9 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,4 +1,10 @@
-# targets 1.9.1.9007
+# targets 1.9.1.9008
+
+## Invalidating changes
+
+These changes invalidate certain targets in a pipeline and cause them to rerun on the next `tar_make()`.
+
+* Exclude function signatures from `tar_repository_cas()` output strings to reduce the size of pipeline metadata (#1390).
 
 ## Summary of performance gains
 
@@ -18,14 +24,14 @@ RHEL9 | 167.809 | 37.395 | 4.487472
 
 To take advantage of these speed gains for an existing pipeline, you may have to run `tar_make()` to convert the time stamps and file sizes to a new format. This initial `tar_make()` is slow, but subsequent `tar_make()` calls should be much faster than before the upgrade.
 
-## Specific changes
+## Other/specific changes
 
 * Speed up `tar_make()` and `tar_outdated()` by avoiding excessive buffering and disk writes for metadata and reporters when the pipeline is just skipping targets.
 * Use a more lookup-efficient data structure for `tar_runtime$file_info` (#1398).
 * Fall back on vector aggregation without names (#1401, @guglicap).
 * Speed up representation of file sizes in metadata (#1408).
 * Add a new `"forecast_interactive"` reporter to `tar_outdated()` to choose `"forecast"` for interactive sessions and `"silent"` for non-interactive ones.
-* Add a new `seconds_reporter_outdated` argument to `tar_config_set()` with a default of 0.5 to control the time interval of the reporter of `tar_outdated()` and other passive algorithm functions.
+* Add a new `seconds_reporter_outdated` argument to `tar_config_set()` with a default of 1 to control the time interval of the reporter of `tar_outdated()` and other passive algorithm functions.
 * Remove target descriptions from the default labels of graph visualizations.
 
 # targets 1.9.1
diff --git a/R/class_store_repository_cas_methods.R b/R/class_store_repository_cas_methods.R
index b18042cd..cb01f902 100644
--- a/R/class_store_repository_cas_methods.R
+++ b/R/class_store_repository_cas_methods.R
@@ -2,12 +2,31 @@ store_repository_cas_methods_init <- function(repository) {
   splits <- unlist(strsplit(repository, split = "&", fixed = TRUE))
   store_repository_cas_methods_new(
     repository = repository,
-    upload = store_repository_cas_field(splits, pattern = "^upload="),
-    download = store_repository_cas_field(splits, pattern = "^download="),
-    exists = store_repository_cas_field(splits, pattern = "^exists="),
-    list = store_repository_cas_field(splits, pattern = "^list="),
+    upload = store_repository_cas_field(
+      splits,
+      pattern = "^upload=",
+      prefix = "function(key, path) "
+    ),
+    download = store_repository_cas_field(
+      splits,
+      pattern = "^download=",
+      prefix = "function(key, path) "
+    ),
+    exists = store_repository_cas_field(
+      splits,
+      pattern = "^exists=",
+      prefix = "function(key) "
+    ),
+    list = store_repository_cas_field(
+      splits,
+      pattern = "^list=",
+      prefix = "function(keys) "
+    ),
     consistent = as.logical(
-      store_repository_cas_field(splits, pattern = "^consistent=")
+      store_repository_cas_field(
+        splits,
+        pattern = "^consistent="
+      )
     )
   )
 }
@@ -45,6 +64,10 @@ store_repository_cas_methods_validate <- function(methods) {
   tar_assert_none_na(methods[["consistent"]])
 }
 
-store_repository_cas_field <- function(repository, pattern) {
-  base64url::base64_urldecode(keyvalue_field(repository, pattern))
+store_repository_cas_field <- function(repository, pattern, prefix = "") {
+  text <- base64url::base64_urldecode(keyvalue_field(repository, pattern))
+  if (text != "NULL") {
+    text <- paste0(prefix, text)
+  }
+  text
 }
diff --git a/R/tar_repository_cas.R b/R/tar_repository_cas.R
index 67e37822..c7e9a5a5 100644
--- a/R/tar_repository_cas.R
+++ b/R/tar_repository_cas.R
@@ -316,6 +316,9 @@ tar_repository_cas <- function(
 }
 
 tar_repository_cas_field <- function(key, value) {
+  if (is.function(value)) {
+    value <- body(value)
+  }
   encoded <- base64url::base64_urlencode(tar_deparse_safe(value))
   paste0(key, "=", encoded)
 }